


The Hungry Sea

by spider_fingers



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Daud hasn't consented to any of this either and wants that to be clear, Dubious Consent, M/M, Other, and i doubt he'd have agreed to any of this, i mean he's majorly Out Of It, in fact he hasn't verbally agreed at all, weird porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-26 12:11:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12058737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spider_fingers/pseuds/spider_fingers
Summary: The mouth alights on his brow, fluttering; his hollowed cheek; his tattered, chapped lips.Oh,he thinks,I must be dreaming.





	1. aka, Corvo has a Nice Dream

**Author's Note:**

> do mind the dubious consent tag.
> 
> i've been wanting to write this stupid thing for MONTHS ughhgghhh but now it's done  
> can you tell i have no idea what i'm doing when it comes to porn? i need so much more practice  
> in any case, at first this was supposed to be a lot less confusing and also a oneshot, but i've been planning a whole bunch of story around it since, hence the postscript/epilogue/whatever bit at the end (and certain bits during), so you might see a series popping up that i'll work on from time to time
> 
> tata, hope you enjoy :)

What dredges him up from the murk of the fever is fingers, drowning-cold, brushing soft as moonlight down his sweating forehead. _Oh,_ he thinks, _I must be dreaming._

He must say something -- he can feel the vibrations in his raw-burned throat -- _Emily? … Jess?_ The fingers, frozen, press against his eyelids. It feels like static shock.

 _Corvo,_ a breath of a word in his ear, _Corvo, Corvo,_ and finger pads, like dry silk, sliding along the hungry line of his cheekbones; the meat of a thumb following his brow; then palms, gentling the consuming fire under his skin. He can’t tell if the strain in his throat is a sound escaping or the stretch of tired muscle as he pushes into the sensation. There is a hand in his hair that doesn’t catch on its tangled snarls but sifts through, grazing against his scalp, and the shivering trails that follow it spread all the way down his spine.

Cold fingertips track the stark tendon of his neck to his collarbone. Their nails are like ice. They trace over the rise of his pectorals, eight mirrored lines; follow the curve of his ribs in curious deliberate sweeps, and spark a tide of trembling in him. His prickling skin feels too tight. Like a dry cocoon. He struggles to open his eyes: they’re gummed together, full of grit and salt, stinging -- a cool mouth presses its lips to them -- he settles. A breath, fresh brine, wind coming in from the sea. It draws out the pain like scooping water from a well.

The mouth alights on his brow, fluttering; his hollowed cheek; his tattered, chapped lips.

His tongue flicks out but he tastes nothing -- the mouth is gone, the hands have strayed from him like a withdrawing wave, he breaks out in goosebumps and his skin reaches and yearns for palms soft as ocean silt.

He drifts for an age in the tossing of the fever. Sometimes he washes up, jetsam and waterlogged as a corpse, on the shore of his bed; the covers have tangled his legs, and moments later they are stretched flat, or tucked up to his chin -- perhaps he only imagined them binding him. His body decides to be cold, and pulls him back under.

Through the haze, something grabs his ankles -- he startles no stronger than a hiccup, too heavy, dragnets holding him still, and thinks, _Sirens_ \-- and releases, cool fingers brushing the bruising ache away, then -- the hard edges of nails, a biting threat, digging in just shy of pain. They skim up the hackling skin of his legs, following tendons that stand out like bones under his surface. He twitches and shifts in the slipping, unsteady sheets but still they slide, slicing ice burns into his calves, tracing over the stiff caps of his knees, inexorable -- every hair stands on end from fever and quill-sharp touching -- fingers stroke from the bristling outside of his thighs to the sensitive inside where the skin tightens like a kissing mouth, where the lines those nails scrape up must stand out obscenely red on pale sunless white, to the clean-cut edges of his hips -- the grooves where thigh and hip meet -- then rake up his quivering stomach, dragging him along, his body straining up like cresting surf. His breath is lodged high in his throat.

The hands slide from his shoulder, his neck, into his hair. His head tilts limply in their grip. Air gasps into his lungs, throat clicking when he swallows. There, sticking against the sweat of his brow, a palm, a wrist -- warm? cool? -- and he exhales, and the sheets are unpleasantly damp under him, and the covers are rumpled and stick to his skin. He opens his eyes.

The light sears into his retinas; it’s like summer afternoons in Karnaca, sweltering and moist, being dared to stare into the sun -- his eyes squint shut again, salt tears squeezing from under the lids, falling down the sides of his face. The cold-hot trails they leave behind confuse him. When his weak hands lift to find something, anything but sweat-damp fabric, all they catch is air.

 _Jess? Jess? Is that you? Are you there?_ He thinks he speaks, but his lips feel numb, clumsy like they’re punch-swollen. He pokes at them with the tip of his tongue.

The ocean-cool mouth meets him there, at their corner, and he tries to turn into it but -- hands in his hair again, keeping him in place -- and he is kissed anyway, in the center of his half-open mouth, hands cupping his face now, thumbs pressing into the wet corners of his lips, pinky and ring finger tickling the thin skin of his neck, and the artery underneath pulses with red iron blood, and he swallows and swallows --

Nails in his scalp, nails piercing his nape like they’ll dig in straight to the spine -- scratching through his hair and he shivers, twists -- that mouth pressing into his, insistent and wanting, the tongue licking in -- demanding, kissing him deeper, pushing the back of his head into the pillow, snatching the breath from him, barely a moment of air -- and fingers following the curve of his mouth, distracting; a tug at his lower lip and a nail pressing into the flesh. The mouth is hot and wet inside, biting like an animal’s, tender. The cold tip of a nose brushes his cheek with every new press of it to his. Fingers pushing past his lips, exploring between kisses; they press down on his tongue. Slip deeper, the pads sliding across his teeth -- stop before the urge to spit them out becomes more than uncomfortable. They dig into the meat of his tongue, grasping, pulling, and he huffs some confused noise, whines in discomfort and arousal; the warmth building in his belly is a stark contrast to the feverish heat prickling at his skin.

He squirms, panting, in search of -- anything. The covers have wrapped around his arms like damp coils. There is nothing here, no weight on him, only the mouth on his again -- sucking on his tongue, kissing him open and slow, and the fingers still in his mouth wet with spit and dragging out over his bottom lip, leaving cold wet trails down his chin, and him rising in search of that hot wet pit --

\-- and the hands, ice and bone-slender, moving down his neck with something like knifing curiosity, something like cold reverence, palms pressed to the wings of his collarbones, moving down, _pushing_ down -- his arms and shoulders flex like he wants to hold the wrists he doesn’t know exist -- his breath is short, the air rarefied -- his ribcage refuses to expand; he shakes, the pressure is an irresistible force, it feels like he should bruise and he can’t move and yet the hands keeping him down are light as the breath washing across his face.

The mouth nips at his lips. Sharp teeth.

 _Oh Corvo_ , says the sea wind, burning like the sun on his exposed face, _Corvo, my_ dearest _Corvo_. Sharp teeth. Sharper words.

The hands become nails become claws raking down his chest, across his nipples -- he arches, shocked -- electrified -- up into air and tangled covers and the devouring nothing and ah, _yes,_ finally -- he is pushed forcefully back down, a tangible weight pinning him at every point, the only thing real in the swaying sea of his bed --

Is that someone calling his name? He sucks in a breath and it trembles in his chest; he pushes, testing, into the unyielding bar pressing his chest and shoulder down, the nervous heat of it through the covers; feels it push back. He wants to open his eyes again but still remembers how it burned -- blindingly -- last time.

Another shift in sensation: sweating sickly heat turns to a wash of cold, leaving him dizzy, the bed spinning and tilting under him, his only point of reference pushing a bruise across his ribs. He’s sinking. Through the sheets and the mattress, through the floor.

Nails like ice, pin-pricking at his oversensitive skin, cutting through the false cold. There are hands at his thighs again -- pressing into the muscle as they rub up his legs, thumbs kneading stiff tendon, tucked into the fold on either side of his cock and hard fingertips digging bruises into him -- then sliding up, gripping his hips and _pulling_ \--

He’s dragged down the bed and the weight on his chest crushes him into the mattress and his lungs are empty but he can _feel_ this, as real as the wind knocked out of him, and he surges up against it with heels digging in then subsides again, the rucked-up covers a mess. He rolls his head and his hair grates against the sheets, in disarray. Without the pillow under his neck it feels like he’s going to tip backwards and fall out a window in the world.

There is no body pushing his legs apart but the hands work at him, coaxing -- slide down the curving thigh to pull his knee out further -- press at the crease of his groin again, the fingers wet and slippery, and he shivers in an unchecked wave -- push at him, gentled and incessant, and he arches and relaxes and relents.

The mouth kisses his stomach, just under his navel -- the flat muscles clench and release. Breath gone hot and humid slides lower, across his hips, and he braces his legs and rises into it. Mouth on him, kissing at the tip -- he tries to moan and it’s strangled in his throat -- a hand still shocking cold wraps around the base of his dick, jerking up then pulling down and the friction is a painful burn and he writhes, keening, head tossing, thighs trying to twist back together but now the heavy weight on him is an anchor, struggling to keep him in place. His eyes are screwed shut. He wants to _bite_.

The other weight -- the barely-there, crushing ocean weight bears him down and locks him there. A feral growl rattles in his chest. He’s sweating, fever-cold and strained. Doesn’t know if he wants this anymore -- but the hands are back on him, grasping tight and slick now, the mouth pressing kisses into the fold of his thighs. Somewhere far below the muddle of consciousness, he feels surprise. Whichever part of him understands what's happening did not expect this. His legs unwind, and he lets himself be pushed into place.

The friction is smooth this time. He makes soft, crackling noises in the back of his throat, his hips twitching up, his own hands curling uselessly in their tangle of sheets; the mouth slides down, tongue rubbing hard against the slit and he groans and gasps on a shaking inhale, his whole body tightening like wire; the fever leaves him swimming in the dark. The other hand, wet fingers sliding over skin, glides nails down the join of hip and thigh -- over the prickling skin of his ballsack -- tease his perineum then press, distracting, against his hole, and he barely has time to breathe before the finger presses _in_ , and the mouth is sliding down his shaft, and he feels ready to shake apart.

It aches like a kick in the gut not to be able to move, the blanketing weight barely budging when he strains against it, only his legs free to slide over the sheets and inch wider, wider, like the pain and the stretch will make this wave crest faster, the mouth swallowing him clumsily down, the hand slick on him twisting to follow, fisting over the head, wet with precome, him full of a clawing animal desperation -- the fever clings to him like a haze -- he feels about to split open, skin stinging with cold and running with salt sweat, the halting high-pitched whine that vibrates in his ears fighting with the urge to breathe; he writhes, his body hungry and twisting to feel the fingers push into him, the mouth hot and sucking on his cock, to wrestle his arms out of the screw of the sheets and grasp blindly for the pillow, the headboard, anything to brace himself against and thrust up, push back into the mess of sensation.

The mouth draws back but the hand is still there, sliding up, thumb rubbing at the wet slit, and he rolls his hips in rhythm, chasing the edge he can feel coming, fingers pressing hard in him, digging into a knot of buzzing pleasure -- sounds in his mouth, _ah, ah,_ everything in him reaching, and _fuck, no, please,_ that _fucking_ hand tightens on him and holds and he’s left straining and weightless, three fingers in him curling like snakes and pushing deep, a residual wave of _too much please no more, more, more_ curving his spine into a tight wanting arc.

Then both hands are gone but there is a body moving against his -- long-limbed, light -- _(barely-there)_ \-- and the anchoring weight is gone as well and somehow it feels like more of a loss --

\-- but the fever unmoors his focus and the body is leaning over him, hands braced by his shoulders (how does he know, when his eyes are closed and the mattress doesn’t seem to dip like it would for something real? was anything real here? was it all fever and loneliness?) then straddling him, fabric against his stomach, the press of legs on his ribs. He is dizzy, struggling for awareness; his hands grapple feebly through too-cold air to touch the bare skin of an arm, a leg, but he cannot hold on, too weak, the body on him too intangible. A cool forehead pressing against his is barely enough to soothe.

Warm moist breath rushing over his mouth, _Corvo,_ hips pinning his down, grinding, skin fresh and burning all at once, like morning, like mid-afternoon, _Corvo, Corvo,_ and he surges helplessly up to meet the pressure with a long low groan, plucked from his loose mouth by cool lips. Nails tracing his jaw, his skin pebbling in pinprick shivers, and the pads of fingers caressing his neck, following the taut, tired lines, digging into the hollow where his collarbones meet. His name a tidal whisper.

He tries to answer -- _what do you want, what, please, please just--_ but every word is swallowed in a ravenous gulping kiss, drawing the coherence from his tongue and leaving him with nothing but shallow feverish whines. The blood throbs in his veins. Everything smells of salt, pungent -- not like sweat, not even like the come staining those hands that spider back up to his throat, the lightest of grips cupping there before it’s palms sliding across his nape, fingers tight, lifting and tilting his head up for a feathering kiss -- then clenching in his hair and pulling him back, back, his vulnerable throat bent and exposed, his hands grabbing for a wrist but still he can’t hold on --

\-- and he’s breached in a single painful thrust, narrow hips pushing his thighs wide open and surprise making him loud and hoarse and shouting, the noise forced out of him on the second thrust, and the third, and he clings to the headboard with a ragged sobbing cry -- and his heels dig in and drive those hips closer -- and there are nails leaving grooves in the sharpness of his hips and the meat of his ass, cutting deeper with every thrust, and teeth biting into his shoulder, and he can’t tell if he’s yelling or if his voice has given way but he is so _fucking_ full and brimming with heat and when he finally comes he can still feel the cool-warm body on him, inside him, pressing him down; the hips twitching closer, drawing out the shivering aftermath; fingers soothing where his hair was pulled.

He melts into the bed. His shoulder still aches, but that cool mouth presses an open kiss there, a wet slide of tongue, then kisses his hot forehead.

He opens his eyes and all he sees is an empty room.

 

*

 

Corvo, arms braced on the mess of his desk, glares Daud down.

Or he tries, at least: Daud hasn’t looked at him once since he was summoned to Corvo’s office. Right now he’s staring obstinately out the window. There’s nothing to see out there -- Corvo knows. He’s searched those square feet of sky for hours when the paperwork bored him out of his mind.

“Why didn’t you report to me yesterday?” he asks -- demands, really. Daud might be Spymaster, of equal hierarchical footing, but as far as Corvo’s concerned he’s on eternal probation.

“Didn’t know you’d recovered yet,” Daud mutters. True, the fever broke only two days ago, but staying informed on whether his de facto employer was functional should have been one of his priorities. Corvo lets his glower simmer.

“You should have.” He holds out his hand. “Your report?”

Daud draws a thick sheaf of paper out of his coat. “For the week you were bedridden.”

When Corvo reaches to take it, their fingers brush.

Daud startles, nearly drops the papers, then takes a hasty and deliberate step back. Corvo observes him with a questioning sort of exasperation.

“I’m not contagious,” he points out. “Sokolov made that clear. Anyway, you’re wearing gloves.”

Now Daud _is_ looking at him, and glaring like he thinks Corvo’s treating him like an idiot. “I know.” His face has gone as gray as his assassins’ whaler coat.

Corvo considers several responses, and decides it’s not worth it. He waves his hand in the direction of the door. “Dismissed.”

Daud blinks away, and Corvo thinks no more of it.


	2. aka, Daud has a Bad Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From his perch on the windowsill, Daud watches Corvo breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was going to say i have neither chill nor restraint re: these two, but then i chickened out on posting this part for a week :D
> 
> i hope you find Daud reacting to Surprise Boner like cats do to Suddenly Cucumber just as hilarious as I do

From his perch on the windowsill, Daud watches Corvo breathe.

It’s been four days now. (Not four days of watching -- that would border on an obsession Daud isn’t subject to.) The first day, after the coughing fits that left him gratingly voiceless and the momentary loss of consciousness, he was still trying to keep up with the paperwork, the schedules and activity reports; now he’s barely awake, the fever raging and subsiding through the day. He hasn’t sat up on his own in twenty-four hours.

He’s lying there on Jessamine’s old bed, in what used to be her room, the only one that gets any sunlight aside from Emily’s up on the last floor. The window is open, curtains drawn back to let the breeze in from the sea. Half of Sokolov’s assistants have been vehemently arguing for the curing power of salt and wind. (The other half mostly run for cover during the argument that follows, Sokolov loudly deriding every wives’ tale and swift assumption he’s ever encountered.)

Daud has taken to ignoring them all. Better that than getting caught up in endless discussion on the eventuality of pneumonia or the possibility of consumption.

The sun warms his back through his underlayers. He discarded the thick red coat an hour ago in favor of the sunlight. His gaze wanders periodically to the slice of the courtyard he can see: a leaning white tree (it looks dead, he still doesn’t understand what the point of it is), grass, greenery, the thick mass of the waterlock -- the gazebo. If he focuses on it, he thinks he can see Jessamine’s memorium, a quiet gray mound on the shadowy cobblestone.

A sound brings his attention snapping back to the room -- a rasp, like pained breathing, muffled. Corvo is still and quiet, buried in the covers. The only signs of life he gives are the flush-on-pallor of his half-covered face and the sometimes whistle of air in his lungs.

Daud unfolds from the sill, his steps even quieter than the thick carpet accounts for as he goes to Corvo’s bedside. Force of habit. (And maybe, just a bit, he’s wary of disturbing him: the dark bags under Corvo’s eyes are impressive even by Gristolian standards.)

The covers have somehow crawled up over Corvo’s mouth, so Daud rights them deftly then proceeds to untangle the rest from where they’ve wrapped around Corvo’s legs. To be honest, this is more likely to bring him out of sleep than footsteps -- but Corvo seems to be taking it fine, not even shifting from where Daud leaves him, and the assistants _did_ specify he should be kept from overheating.

Not that they said that to Daud, specifically. They just aren’t here right now to make sure of it themselves.

He steps back. Where _have_ the physicians gone? Usually he can hear them, their voices and the sounds of their back-and-forths drifting through the open passageway in the fireplace -- Sokolov had set up shop in Corvo’s chambers at the beginning of his convalescence. Daud has always noted the presence of an assistant or two in the adjoining room, if not Sokolov himself. Now the whole of Dunwall Tower is silent. Empty. Like it’s abandoned.

Daud frowns, grabbing his overcoat from where he’d slung it across the back of a chair, and starts to put it back on.

He’s stepping over the windowsill when another sound comes from the bed.

The glance he shoots back is unconcerned. He hasn’t even properly turned around, looking over his shoulder instead, momentum carrying him forward in preparation for a short climb along the wall and a long transversal to the ground -- Corvo has barely moved if at all, his hair a dark mess of snarls on the pillow -- but Daud stops in his tracks when he sees Corvo jerk under the covers, spine bending up and relaxing in one sudden heaving movement.

“Attano?” he tries, but the body in the bed is still again. The only difference is how loud its breathing is: heavy; labored.

Daud drops back to the floor and strides across the room. Corvo’s forehead is clammy with sweat, burning hot against the back of his hand -- is the fever spiking again? he can’t tell like this, he needs a thermometer -- and the man’s breath is a too-humid cloud on his arm. He switches to the wrist of his other hand, pushing back his sleeve, but it makes no noticeable difference. His eyes flick to the fire grate. He could look around Sokolov’s temporary setup, find his medical supplies -- he only hopes the Royal Physician doesn’t keep a pigsty of an office like he did when Daud passed through the academy --

He looks back down and Corvo’s eyes are open.

Daud jumps back like he expects Corvo to rear up and attack -- but Corvo’s eyes are already screwing shut in the stream of sunlight, his hands rising bare centimeters from the mattress like he wants to shield himself from the window. The covers lie rumpled at his waist, thrown off by his jerking around.

With a start Daud realizes there are tears falling down Corvo’s face, and he looks away, tight-chested, to draw the curtains closed. He leaves the window open, though. The breeze trickling in is fresh and smells distantly familiar.

Corvo has turned his face away from the window when Daud turns back, but even from across the room he can see how Corvo is shivering and twisting on himself, the covers torn almost entirely away. Daud grimaces. Now he can see the appeal of a cawing gaggle of assistants to the Royal Physician.

( _Hypocrite,_ he thinks to himself, but -- _the flashing image of Thomas, mask pushed back_ \-- _Galia, her freckled nose wrinkling in laughter_ \-- doesn’t let himself delve into why.)

He rejoins Corvo’s bedside and brings the covers back up, tucking them briskly in around the man’s arms in the hope that will keep him still longer, but when he goes to pull them up to the man’s chin Corvo makes a face and huffs, a noise rattling up out of his throat, high-pitched when it manages to get through. Daud hesitates. He still seems delirious, too far out of it to really know what’s going on but -- if it’s just that he can’t talk around the mess of his vocal chords -- Daud folds the cover back across Corvo’s chest, away from his face.

Doesn’t help the squirming, however: Corvo’s pulling the covers loose as fast as Daud can get them down. Getting a bit desperate, Daud pins the covers either side of Corvo’s shoulders, simultaneously leaning as far away as possible; this close Corvo smells sour with fever-sweat, and his hard breathing is a wet gush on Daud’s face at every exhale.

 _Why am I doing this,_ he asks himself, expression flatly exasperated, and stubbornly keeps going.

Corvo’s shoulders strain like he knows who’s holding him down, his whole spine bowing up but Daud bears down and makes sure he _stays_ down, muttering, “Come on, Attano, fucking settle.” He finally starts to still, only making small, aborted movements --

Daud’s heart leaps into his throat -- that’s his ribcage jolting -- out-in, like-- like he can’t breathe --

Corvo’s shaking full-bodied now, and even when Daud yanks his hands back and the covers pull loose immediately he can’t seem to get a proper breath in, struggling like there’s an unseen weight on him, crushing him -- “ _Attano_ \--” -- and he’s arching up, _Void,_ a rigid bridge of flesh on the bed --

He remembers -- a Whaler, tired, woozy at the mess table -- crumpling like a loose puppet on the floor -- seizing --

It’s enough to get him into gear.

Daud is leaning over him again, flattening him by force, and he holds Corvo’s face in a firm grip to press it cheek down to the mattress. Dread crawls up from his belly. He doesn’t really recall what he’s supposed to do from here. “Attano? … Corvo?” There’s still a tangible trembling in Corvo’s limbs, running through him in waves; Daud considers slapping him into consciousness for all of a second before violently discarding the idea. Maybe if he yells loud enough, someone will hear him and come, and bring the physicians back before Corvo does something stupid and permanent like swallow his tongue --

Corvo gasps like someone surfacing, the shakes dying under Daud’s anchoring arm. Okay. Fine. That’s fine.

Corvo’s still pushing up, but only lightly, not the electric reaction from before. Daud presses him down anyway -- then thinks better of it and shifts his arm to the side, so it’s not lying right across Corvo’s chest, just in case he has trouble breathing again --

And right then, like a wriggling rat, Corvo scoots a foot down the bed.

Daud, already off-balance, crashes right into him, all the air escaping Corvo’s lungs in a wheezing rush. Corvo surges up into him again but subsides just as fast -- not another seizure, then -- going pliant under the covers, his head rolling and loose. Can’t tell if he’s skirting wakefulness or deep in some strange fever dream, but it looks like he’s calmed for now. This could be a good time to go and fetch those physicians, before Daud has to scramble for the scant medical knowledge he’s acquired over the years that doesn’t have to do with wound care. He cautiously kneels up on the bed, hands against Corvo’s shoulders for balance.

Of course Corvo picks that moment to arch up under him again, whole body flexing feebly; Daud narrowly avoids falling and making a fool of himself for the second time in a handful of minutes, and watches, wary of another episode, but this one is even weaker than the last and Corvo goes limp again.

“You’re a pain in the ass, bodyguard,” he mutters from behind clenched teeth, eyes darting across Corvo’s face for signs of consciousness. His head has tilted back, and his mouth is stretched wide open, his breath coming in sharp rasps. He looks completely ridiculous.

Corvo’s body tightens in another upsurge, stronger this time; Daud rides it out, only tucking himself closer to keep his balance, though the choked-off noise coming out of Corvo’s mouth puts him on edge.

He gets two blessed seconds of respite.

The thrashing starts with no warning -- Corvo writhes like a trapped animal, legs twisting in the sheets; Daud struggles to get a grip on any part of him to wrestle him down, Corvo’s contorting torso almost bucking him off as soon as Daud pins the man’s thighs with his knees -- and there’s a painful high-pitched noise, tearing up from Corvo’s throat, and it makes him think of Abbey hounds yelping, stumbling, when he’d cut them down --

Just as suddenly the thrashing stops, but now the noise has turned to a growl, deep and grating, that sends his hackles rising out of sheer instinctive unease.

 _What in the Void kind of fever nightmare are you even having,_ Daud thinks, slightly desperate.

The growl cuts off -- then changes again, softer now, still raw-sounding, and Daud absentmindedly compensates his pin for the minute shifting of Corvo’s hips.

The next sound out of his mouth is a fucking _groan,_ and Daud barely has the time to balk before Corvo’s stiffening underneath him again and he automatically moves to keep him down, suddenly acutely aware of the shift of muscle under the covers -- Corvo is _very naked_ under them, all his clothes are on the chair over there, what is happening -- and the way the tension seems to roll through him from ankle to neck, like-- he’s not going to finish that simile.

 _What am I doing,_ Daud asks himself, now _very_ desperate. _This is clearly not a seizure._

Corvo is _rank_ with sweat, and the skin of his shoulders is off-puttingly slippery where the covers have slipped down, which makes it all the harder to hold him still when he starts twisting under them again, a stuttering whine making its way out of him, his arms fighting to get free -- Daud rears back just in case this is leading up to a punch in the face but all Corvo does is make a frantic grab for the pillow and clench his fists in it like it’s a life raft, tucking his chin into his chest, a gasping frenzy as he keeps moving, sinuous, and his hips come up and holy _SHIT_ that is, that is definitely what Daud thinks it is, isn’t it.

Daud very briefly considers ignoring the _massive erection_ happening to his leg before leaping off the bed like a scalded cat.

He’s at the windowsill in a hot second, skin feeling strange and too tight all the way up to the nape of his neck. He very much wants to not look back -- wants to transverse to the roof and halfway across the city, to be honest -- but it still takes a stupid amount of effort to just step out onto the ledge and stand, shivering, his back to the sun-warmed wall. Sea wind blasts him mockingly in the face. He refuses to think about what just happened, and how deeply embarrassed he’s going to be every single time he looks Corvo in the face from now on.

Daud waits there a handful of seconds, just enough for his heartrate to begin to settle, and starts making his way along the outside of Dunwall Tower.

He’ll go find the physicians, just in case. If Corvo has an aneurysm because of a fever sex dream, he’s never going to live it down.


End file.
